with our hearts still beating promises
by theriversoul
Summary: These are her friends but all she sees are worried faces of people she used to know. This is the sequel to The Little Things You Give Away. Spock/Uhura


**Rating:** R  
**Characters:** Spock/Uhura with Kirk and Bones  
**Summary:** _These are her friends but all she sees are worried faces of people she used to know._  
**Authors Note:** Many, many thanks to **jazmin22** for being an awesome beta and encouraging me. This is the sequel to The Little Things You Give Away. I hadn't planned on writing anything more for this story but I surprised myself it seemed.  
**Warnings:** Possibly triggery (deals with the aftermath of rape and abuse).

* * *

They find her. Eventually.

-

Bones says nothing when he sees the bruises on her body, the unmistakable pattern of fingerprints and teeth marks. They do not speak while he runs his tests on her and Uhura is thankful for that; she has grown accustom to silence, to unspoken words. Occasionally she feels him pause in his ministrations to watch her, eyes sliding over her, cataloging and calculating. Before he's finished he draws her blood but Uhura barely feels the prick of the needle or the sluggish flow of it from her arm. She remembers dimly that she used to be afraid of needles once. Now she feels nothing except an aching tiredness, deep in her bones.

"All done," Bones says and lays his hands over hers, fingers cool and reassuring. She can not keep the flinch from her eyes, and when she looks to his face, his brown eyes are full of compassion and sympathy. Uhura looks away, overwhelmed.

"I'll be right back," he tells her and Uhura watches him go, shivering in the cool recycled air of the ship. Eventually she falls into an uneasy sleep, the alien hum of the Enterprise surrounding her.

-

She wakes to their voices, a few feet outside the thin curtain of her room. At first it is hard to distinguish their words until Uhura realize they are speaking Standard, not Vulcan. She struggles with the strange cadence of a language she has not heard spoken aloud in over a year. Kirk's voice is the loudest, rising above all the others.

"But she'll be ok?"

"Physically she's fine," she hears Bones start, voice purposely low. He sounds tired, worried.

"She appears to be under great mental duress."

"That much is obvious," Bones says but there's no malice behind his sharp words towards Spock. After a moment the three of them fall into a fit of silence. Then-

"Can I see her Bones?"

"Yeah, yeah, just don't get her all riled up Jim."

"You know me, Bones."

Uhura can almost hear the smile in his voice.

"I do," Bones tells him pointedly, and Uhura remembers the doctor's face, exasperation tinged with amusement from another time, an old frayed memory resurfacing inside her.

"Spock. You coming?"

"No," he begins and Uhura strains to hear his voice, softest of the three as he pauses. "I believe that would be unwise."

-

They release her from sickbay eventually and allow her to return to her quarters. Her room looks brighter than she remembers; bold reds and yellows, old woven wall hangings from her family. She sits on her narrow bed. Everything is just as she left it, neat and precise, rows of data pads stacked in the corner of her desk next to knick knacks she's collected over the years and framed pictures of her family. She touches one of them carefully, presses her hand against the sharp corner of the frame, skin burning. When she pulls away her finger is brown and smooth. There is no blood.

Minutes tick past and she waits, hands splayed on her thighs before she remembers.

No one is coming.

-

They start her back on duty in increments; times laid out by the ships psychiatrist who stares at Uhura like she thinks sheer force of will alone will make her talk. No one else asks her about the missing year. They treat her like before, trying to help but Uhura just feels more out of place, more disjointed. These are her friends but all she sees are worried faces of people she used to know.

Kirk, Uhura thinks, might be the worst. He'd been light and funny at her bedside in sickbay but over the passing weeks since her return he's been distilled down into dark, worried eyes that follow her over the bridge and unspoken words and gestures he wants to impart restrained behind his uncertainty and concern. Slowly, the others change, too, and Uhura feels helpless to stop it. She feels numb, trying in vain to go through the motions, to remember to smile, to laugh and touch like she use to. She wants so much to be OK, to push through this and be strong.

She's just so tired these days.

-

Uhura hasn't seen Spock since they came for her. Sometimes she thinks she catches glimpses of him moving through the halls but she can't be sure. They're never on duty together anymore. It's not a coincidence. She can't be sure, but she thinks he knows exactly what happened to her during that year she was gone, even if she keeps her own council.

Uhura doesn't know if the feelings rolling around inside her are relief from his absence or pained longing for it.

-

She dreams about _him_ on the nights she actually falls asleep, the brush of his mouth and the tickle of the beard against hers. She dreams of new and old scenarios cobbled together from her memories and fears. In her dreams she gives up easily to him, searching for some sense of home, of relief from her pain. She wakes with the feel of his fingers on her face, a half swallowed sob burning in her throat.

In the morning she stares at herself in the mirror and wonders if she looks close enough if she would see grooves on her face, above her eyes and on her cheek, where his hands would fit.

-

It's McCoy who talks to her finally. It's late and with the exception of Nurse Chapel, who excuses herself when Uhura arrives, empty. It takes him a few moments to work into what he wants to say, his characteristic bluntness gone. Uhura wonders if he came up with this idea on his own or just drew the short stick.

"I can't begin to imagine what happened to you," he starts and Uhura finds some small amount of gratification in watching his eyes slide guiltily away from her. "But you're back. With us. With your friends now." When he looks back to her his gaze is intense, demanding, "You have to talk about what happened with someone. You have to start fighting to get your life back. You have to want it back."

The anger that rolls inside Uhura is sudden, unexpected. For a moment she's paralyzed by it, by the first strong sensation of anything moving inside her. "Go to hell," she says. "What the hell do you know about this? About what I am going through? What happened to me, what he did…"she says, but stops almost as soon as the words are out.

_What he did_... that was the first time she'd spoken anything aloud about him, admitted that something had happened. For a moment she just stares at McCoy without really seeing him, memories rising up inside her.

This happened. To her. There was no avoiding it. No forgetting.

He'd taken so much from her and even now, separated by a universe she was letting him take more. The realization is painful, a burning lump twisting in her throat and mouth. It chokes her. She's afraid of not remembering how to be strong again and she has no idea where to start. What to do. She just knows she's tired of feeling weak, feeling helpless.

"Find someone to talk to," McCoy urges in wake of her silence, voice gentle. He doesn't offer himself, just covers her hand with his. After a moment she turns her palm into his, pressing their skin together and breathes deep and slow.

That night she dreams of her grandmother, and of the old, dusty house of her youth and the softness of mother's arms. She feels safe, feels right for the first time in months and when she wakes, dream slipping away with each passing moment of awareness, the feelings remain.

-

She watches the group of officers from the bridge, Sulu, Kirk and even little Chekov, crowded around a table in the mess hall, shouting and yelling, excitement in the posture of their bodies. She isn't sure what exactly they're doing but she thinks they might be arm wresting. The thought of it makes her smile, and when she looks up Kirk is watching her over the crowd. Uhura tries to look away but he's quicker, striding across the room toward her.

"Want to join us?" Kirk ask, voice even. Her response _no thank you, Captain_ is on the tip of her tongue and she struggles not to say it. She's works against the desire be alone, to isolate herself and tries to hold onto that strong under current of want for the things that made her feel before. "Chekov is totally kicking Sulu's ass," Kirk say, wiggling his eyebrows at her, trying to make light despite the hope and worry written all over his face.

"Sure," she says, breathes out the single world a little unsteadily.

Kirk's smile is brilliant and he rocks forward on his toes, offers his hand to her. She takes it, hand slack around his until he flexes his fingers, grip warm and reassuring. The group at the table widens, lets her and Kirk into the circle again. Chekov looks up at her and he gives her a tentative smile that she returns. She feels the other's, eyes on her, too, and struggles with the rise and fall of her emotions, the tension in her muscles.

Its burns a little, finding her place again.

-

She doesn't give herself too much time to think about it, just sends a short message for him to meet her. She's almost convinced herself this is a good idea, something she needs to do when the chime to her quarter's rings and it all comes down around her, doubt that seeps into her resolve. It's too late to turn him away now, not after she finally found the courage to ask him to come.

When she opens the door Spock's standing in the entryway, the blue press of his uniform bright against his pale skin. He looks young and vulnerable, how she'd always imagined him as a little boy on Vulcan. "Please come in," she says and he complies stiffly, holding himself away from her. She wonders if this is a good idea, for either of them.

"I did not expect," Spock starts before he sees Uhura's pained expression. "My presence distresses you."

"Yes. No, I don't-" she begins and sees him steel himself for her words. She doesn't know what to do with these feelings bubbling up inside her. She wants him near her, to feel the softness of his breath against the crown of her head. She never wants to see him again. Mostly, she just wants to be rid of this fear, burning hot white under her skin.

"I'm having some trouble," she begins, voice shaking. "Being back here, being around you. You're not…..you're different from him but he did things," she admits and hears herself speak like she is very far away. She feels out of control, open and vulnerable. She feels alone. It was easy to fool herself outside the walls, to think she was making progress towards being, if not whole ok, at least ok.

"I know." He says, words easing her a little. She is grateful for his interruption, for the words she won't have to say to him yet. Maybe one day, when she is ready. He will listen then, too.

"I have felt," he begins and she watches the corners of his mouth tightening and the tendon in his neck strain before he speaks again. "I feel you," he says simply, pressing two fingers to his temple, "here," and then to his chest, where a human heart would have been, "and here."

Uhura stares at his face, at the careful arrangement of the muscles there and sees in his eyes all the emotion he would like to hide from her, his grief and his shame, his love and a terrible, terrible pain that quickens something inside her. All of it is laid bare, crying in relief at the sight of her. Holding her face in her hands, Uhura weeps for the first time since she left this ship, a year ago. She cries for herself, for everything she's lost and everything that's been taken from her.

Later, when she's cried all that she can, body hot and tight with grief, Spock will lay beside her on the bed. In the dark she will listen to the steady rhythm of his breathing, their hands resting side by side, not touching in the space between, and Uhura will search his face for the differences and the path that will lead her back to him.


End file.
